


rewind

by zukoandtheoc



Category: Reckoners - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Nonbinary Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-03-27 13:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13881825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zukoandtheoc/pseuds/zukoandtheoc
Summary: In an encounter with an unusual Epic, David loses over a year of his memory. How will David, remembering a world where Steelheart still rules, react to how things have changed - how he's changed things? Post-Calamity.





	1. forget

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eevee_Miscellaneous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eevee_Miscellaneous/gifts), [Ryss_Alsief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryss_Alsief/gifts).



> I share custody of this story's OC with the members of my Discord chat, and I dedicate this story to them. Y'all are awesome.

“David?”

David is surprised to find that he’s not in that much pain. He’s surprised to find he’s alive, actually. He remembers being certain that Enforcement would kill him.

“David!”

That voice… David forces his eyes open to see, for what is to his knowledge the second time that day, a beautiful, familiar face hovering over him.

“Megan,” he breathes, relief flooding through him. “You’re okay…”

Megan helps him sit up; he clings to her hand, needing the reminder that she’s actually here. He notes with some bewilderment that his leg doesn’t feel like it was recently run over by a motorcycle with broken gravatonics. His memory is fuzzy, but he’s pretty sure that happened.

He turns to Megan, gets a better look at her. Something’s off. She’s as beautiful as he remembers - long, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, a few stray locks falling around her face, a holster under her arm and one at her waist - but something’s off.

_ How long was I out? _

There’s a furrow in her brow - confusion, and something more. Worry. She doesn’t try to pull her hand away; in fact, she squeezes David’s hand in reassurance. Nice, but a little weird.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says slowly, as if she wasn’t the one who nearly died. Maybe she wasn’t. David wasn’t sure of anything at this point.

Megan glances around, like she’s looking for something. David takes the moment to take stock of their surroundings, too.

They’re… in a building?

David doesn’t recognize this place. He’d expected them to be back at the hideout, maybe, or somewhere in the understreets. Even the steel catacombs would have kind of made sense, but… they’re  _ in a building. _ And there’s…  _ sunlight? _

He and Megan turn back to each other, and speak simultaneously.

“Rewind’s gone?” Megan asks.

“Where  _ are _ we?” David asks.

David pauses while he processes what Megan said. “Wait, who’s Rewind?”

Meanwhile, Megan has a look on her face like someone’s pulled a gun on her. Or maybe, more like someone’s pulled a gun on David and is threatening to shoot him, all while she’s being forced to watch.

“David,” she says, with the exact same fear in her voice that David felt when she got crushed under that motorcycle. “I need you to tell me what the last thing you remember is.”

David frowns. Nothing about this situation - the sunlight streaming through the window, the lack of pain in his leg, Megan’s hand still in his - is adding up.

“We were running from Enforcement,” he says. “You were driving the cycle, and there was that copter coming for us, so I shot it with the gauss gun, and…”

David trails off. There are tears forming at the corners of Megan’s eyes.

“Sparks,” she murmurs, slipping her hand out of David’s grip to run it through her hair, disturbing her ponytail. “They’re even more powerful than we thought.”

David has no idea who she’s talking about. Enforcement, maybe - no, that doesn’t make sense. His memory is so fuzzy. He remembers carrying her until his arms ached. Was that before or after they were cornered by Enforcement? Both? And when did Prof show up?

There’s one thing he remembers for sure, though. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispers. “I thought - I thought both of us were going to die.”

Megan reaches up and wipes a tear off his cheek. Funny, he hadn’t realized he was crying.

“David,” she says again, and he thinks her voice saying his name is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. Her hand finds its way back to his. “Just now, we were facing an Epic called Rewind. We’re not sure exactly how powerful they are, but most of their powers have to do with altering people’s memories.”

She pauses to let that sink in.

David takes a deep breath. He glances at the window again. Newcago, painted in a fruit salad of colors, bathed in sunlight. Try as he might, he can’t come up with anything to say.

“Oh,” he mumbles, and looks back at her. “And I…?”

She nods, blinking away tears. “You’ve lost about a year and a half of your memory.”


	2. question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prof starts planning. David doesn't know what's going on. Megan tries to comfort him. Megan's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this is A Mess and completely unedited but also long overdue so here, just take this
> 
> I will be switching POVs from chapter to chapter just so yall know

David stands at the window, gazing out at a changed world. Megan watches him for a moment, then turns away as her mobile buzzes, indicating the lines coming back up.

“I've reconfigured our networks so that whoever has David's mobile won't be able to listen in on us,” Prof says. “Any sign of Fast-Forward?”

“No,” Mizzy replies. “She ran when Megan went back to look for David. She was too quick for us to track.”

“If she intended to come back for us, she would have done so by now,” Abraham adds, in his light French accent. “I believe we are in the clear.”

“Agreed,” Prof says. “Still, watch your backs, and let me know if anything changes. Cody, I want you to cover Mizzy and Abraham. All three of you, head back to base and pack up some necessities, then head down to Hole Twenty-Four. Megan, David, and I will meet you there.”

“Got it,” Cody drawls.

“Hole Twenty-Four?” Mizzy asks skeptically. “We’re going into the steel catacombs?”

“Right now, David remembers the Reckoners as we were a year and a half ago,” Megan whispers. She glances back at David; he doesn’t seem to have heard her. “We were working out of the steel catacombs back then. We’ll have to ease him into how the city has changed, and it’s best that we start somewhere familiar.”

“Megan’s right,” Prof says softly. “David remembers a world where Steelheart was in power and all Epics were inherently evil. A lot has changed since then, and we’ll need to find a way to introduce those changes to him… delicately.”

“Sparks,” Mizzy says. “We need to find a way to get David’s memories back. Shouldn't we be going after that other Epic?”

“Ah, but we need to plan,” Abraham says. “It would not do David any good if we were to lose our memories as well, eh?”

“Aye, it wouldn't,” Cody says. “What do we know about our wee memory thief, anywho?”

“Not much,” Megan admits. “David collected a little information about them, but he wasn't sure how accurate it was. They're a memory Epic, after all.” She pauses. “Everything he found is in his notes back at base.”

“Abraham, bring David's notes along with the rest,” Prof says. “We'll go over them after we regroup, and go from there.”

“Understood.”

Sounds of affirmation come from the rest of the group as they prepare to carry out their orders. Megan's mobile flashes; Prof’s contacting her one-on-one.

“How's he doing?” their team leader asks softly.

Megan casts a glance back at her boyfriend. David's leaning out the open window, the sunset painting his face in shades of gold. He notices her watching him, and smiles at her uncertainly.

She smiles back at him, and holds up a hand in a “one more minute” gesture. He replies with a thumbs-up.

“As well as can be expected,” she murmurs. “Prof, he’s going to have questions.”

“I know,” Prof replies. “You asked him about the last thing he remembers.”

“Yeah,” she says. “He said it was…” She glances over her shoulder, and chooses her words carefully. “The attempted hit on Conflux.”

There’s a long silence over the line. Then, “ _Calamity._ ” Megan imagines Prof rubbing his temples while he says this.

“I don’t think he remembers all the details,” she adds. “He seemed pretty confused.”

“I’m not sure if that makes this situation better or worse,” Prof says. “Sparks. We have to come up with _something_ to tell him.”

Megan doesn’t say anything. She’s pretty sure that when Prof says “we”, he doesn’t mean the entire team. He’s talking about the two of them specifically.

She and Prof aren’t friends, exactly; their history is too full of hurt and betrayal and lies for that. But they do have something in common.

They both love David.

“Don’t lie to him outright,” Prof says, finally. “Calamity knows we’ve done enough of that. But don’t tell him everything, not yet.” He pauses. “Answer his questions about Newcago, for now. Don’t mention corruption or Calamity or either of our powers. And don’t mention _his_ powers, either.” He sighs. “I’ll work on how to explain the rest while the rest of the team works on tracking Rewind.”

“Got it,” Megan replies softly. She straightens up from where she was leaning against a steel wall, and turns toward David. After a moment of hesitation, she adds, “We’ll figure this out. We always do.”

Prof’s only response is a soft grunt, then a soft beep as he disconnects.

She returns her mobile to its mount on her wrist, then walks up to David. “Hey,” she says.

He turns to her. Calamity, he looks so nervous. “Hey,” he says.

“We’re going to go meet up with the rest of the team now,” she says. Her mobile buzzes, startling David. She checks it. “Prof sent me a map,” she explains.

“Oh,” David says sheepishly. He casts one last glance at the window, then follows her down the hallway. “Are we not going back to our… er, to the, uh, regular hideout?”

Megan smiles at him sadly. “Our base is aboveground now,” she says. “Prof thought it might be easier on you if we went somewhere a little more familiar.”

“Oh,” he mumbles. “That… makes sense, I guess.” There's a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Megan examines the map, and finds that there is, in fact, a shortcut into the understreets in this building. “This way,” she says, leading them down a flight of stairs.

“A year and a half,” David murmurs, dragging his hand along the steel railing. “I missed out on a lot, huh?” He pauses. “Or I guess I was there for most of it, but now I don't remember it, so it feels like I missed it anyway.”

Megan slows to let David catch up with her. “A lot has changed, David,” she says. “More than you can even begin to imagine. I can try to answer some of your questions right now, but there are some things that I can’t explain, not yet.” She holds open a door for him. “We’re gonna take it slow, give you time to adjust.”

David pauses in the doorway, his gaze lingering on her face. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “As long as it’s nothing too crazy, like… like Cody renouncing his Scottish heritage or something.”

Megan laughs. “No, nothing like that,” she says, closing the door behind them, and turning on her mobile to light up the understreets.

She checks their route on the map. Prof plotted a route that takes them through mostly unpopulated areas, so as to minimize the risk of them being seen and recognized. It’ll take them longer than if they’d taken a shortcut through a busier part of the understreets, but it’s better that David not be exposed to his adoring fans at the moment. Mizzy, Cody, and Abraham will probably get to the new hideout ahead of them.

David looks around as they walk, as if he’s trying to absorb everything he can. “I don’t even know where to begin,” he says.

Looking up at the lights embedded in the ceiling, he misses a step and nearly trips. Megan grabs his shoulder to steady him, and he lets out an extremely dignified squeak.

His eyes go wide. Megan realizes that he’s not used to having such casual physical contact between them, and internally curses. Still, she only lets him go after making sure he’s got his balance back.

“Um,” he says eloquently. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” she says. After an awkward pause, they continue walking.

 _I’m going to have to tell him about our relationship eventually,_ she thinks. Her heart twists painfully. She knows he’d already had feelings for her back then, but he couldn’t have known - _can’t_ know how mutual those feelings are.

She can’t even imagine what Mizzy must be going through.

David’s the first to break the silence. “The hit on Conflux,” he says. “Things start to get blurry around the time I started blasting through walls with the gauss gun, but…” He glances at her, briefly, then looks away. “I feel like I remember you getting hurt pretty badly,” he says softly. “And I remember us getting cornered. How… how did we get out of that?”

“Prof rescued us,” Megan says. “The hit… didn’t quite go as planned. I think he’ll want to tell you the details a bit later.”

“Okay,” he says, stopping as they reach a crossroads. He turns to her. “And you?” His voice is soft, scared.

Megan swallows, her throat suddenly feeling dry. She can’t lie to him, but she can’t tell him the truth either.

“Yeah,” she says. “I got hurt.”

David lifts a hand, leaves it hovering uselessly in the air for a moment, then drops it back to his side.

“You’re okay now, though,” he says.

Megan wants to cry. “Yeah, I’m okay now.”

There’s still a question in his eyes, but he seems to understand that he shouldn’t press more. He relaxes a little. “You’re okay,” he says. “That’s what’s important.” He glances around them at the branching streets. “Which way?”

Megan glances at her mobile. “Right, this way,” she says, indicating the correct tunnel, and they start moving again.

David seems a little more comfortable now. “So,” he says, glancing up as they pass under a skylight, “what happened to Nightwielder?”

Megan shoots a sideways grin at him. “He's dead,” she says. “You checkmated him - a handgun in one hand, a broken rifle with a UV flashlight taped to it in the other. It was impressive.”

She swears she can see stars in his eyes. “Wow,” he says. “So, if Nightwielder’s dead, and um… Prof’s going to tell me what happened to Conflux… um, what about Firefight?”

Megan feels sick for a moment. She could tell him everything, to Calamity with Prof, and then… what? Have David hate her?

The reality of just how _impossible_ this situation is starts to sink in.

“You were right,” she murmurs, not making eye contact, “about Firefight not being what everyone thought.”

David nods, and Megan realizes that he was barely listening to her non-answer. He’s just stalling, trying to prepare himself for the big one.

He bites his lip. “And… Steelheart?”

Megan thinks for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to explain. “Remember that secret room we found during the raid on the power plant?”

David’s brow wrinkles. “Yeah. With all that weird propaganda. What about it?”

They turn another corner. “It turned out that all that - the propaganda, the daily Reinforcement, all the fake stories about terrible things he supposedly did - it was all to keep the people of Newcago afraid of him.” She meets David’s eyes. “Your father wasn’t afraid of him.”

David’s face lights up as the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place. “That’s his weakness,” he says. “People not being afraid of him. That’s why he does - why he did all those things, to make sure everyone was scared of him, so then no one could hurt him.” He falters. “Then how did we…?”

“There was one person who could never be afraid of him,” Megan says.

David tilts his head like a confused puppy. Then the penny drops, and he lets out a little laugh. “Of course,” he says.

“The battlefield was rigged beforehand with explosives, as a distraction in case the team needed to escape,” Megan says. “My understanding is that you used the blasting caps we got from Diamond to trick Steelheart into setting off the explosion himself.”

David gets a sad, wistful smile on his face. “Wish I could remember that.” He shakes his head. “Sparks. How did I manage to survive that?”

Megan rolls her eyes. “Same way you survive anything,” she says. “You’re an incredibly lucky slontze.” She pauses. “Also, Prof has excellent timing.”

David laughs. “That’s fair,” he says.

The echo of his laughter fades out, and they walk on in silence for a while.

“And now Newcago’s free,” David breathes - half a statement of wonder, half a question.

“Yeah,” Megan says. “There have been a few… incidents,” she admits with a wince, “of other Epics coming in and trying to fill the power vacuum or take revenge. But the Reckoners have stayed, to protect the city, and to inspire its people to fight back.”

“Wow,” he murmurs. “That's… I never imagined we'd make it this far, y’know?”

“We never would have without you,” she says earnestly.

He looks up at her. “You were against it,” he says. “My plan for killing Steelheart. What changed your mind?”

She shrugs helplessly. “You did.”

David blushes and looks away. Megan thinks she catches a smile on his face.

_Sparks, I love this boy._

The smile fades, though, into a pensive look of contemplation. He’s quiet for a while, as Megan guides them through the deserted parts of the understreets. She doesn’t press him to talk; he’ll tell her what he’s thinking when he’s ready.

“I feel like…” He trails off, uncertain.

The silence stretches out. When David fails to come up with an adequate metaphor to finish his sentence, Megan guesses, “Like a brick made of porridge?”

David doesn’t laugh so much as huff in amusement. “Kinda, yeah. But not quite.”

“Like a barrel of green ducks at a Fourth of July parade?”

That makes David pause. “When did I say that?”

“You didn’t, actually. I said that.”

He looks at her, a smile fighting to take over his face; Megan wishes it would win.

“That’s a good one,” he says finally. Then he shakes his head. “But no, right now I’m more like… like a jelly donut that’s had all its jelly squeezed out.”

Megan, as she so often has to, takes a moment to think about what David just said.

“That… makes sense, I suppose,” she says slowly. “You’re the donut and the jelly is like your memories.”

David frowns. “I guess I see where you get that interpretation from,” he says. “But I didn’t lose all my memories, only some of them, so if the jelly was my memories then I’d just be, like, a leaky jelly donut. No, I meant it more like, the jelly is…” He gestures widely in front of him. “My purpose? My goal in life?” He sighs.

They stop walking.

“I know I’ve said it a thousand times,” David says. “But this… my research, my notes, my plan… it’s my whole life. It’s been my whole life for ten years. And now…” He shakes his head. “It’s just gone. It’s over, and I don’t even remember it ending.”

“David,” Megan says softly, heart aching for him. She doesn’t know what the right words are in this situation.

“I don’t even know who I am now,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.

His hand stills. Fingers pluck at the silver chain around his neck.

_Oh, no._

He traces the chain down, down to where the stylized _S_ -shaped pendant rests on his collarbone. He lifts it up in front of his face; his eyes cross looking at it.

“ _Sparks_ ,” he whispers, stunned. “I really… _really_ don’t know who I am anymore.”

The pendant slips out of his fingers. His eyes refocus on Megan, silently pleading.

 _You’re David Charleston_ , Megan wants to say. _Steelslayer. Calamity-slayer. My boyfriend. The leader of the new Reckoners. The one who changed everything. The man who saved the world._

_The boy who saved me._

She remembers something David said to her, once.

“You,” Megan says, gently bopping David’s nose, “are a sunrise.”

His nose wrinkles in confusion. “A… sunrise?”

“You told me once,” she says, “that photographs of sunrises never seemed as beautiful as the real thing. You said that you realized it was because photographs can only capture a single moment.”

David nods slowly, though there’s still confusion in his eyes. “Photographs are static,” he says. “Sunrises… they’re changing the whole time.”

Megan nods. “They’re not moments,” she says. “They’re events.” She smiles. “You said the same thing about us. ‘We’re not moments, you and me. We’re events.’”

“Wow,” David breathes. Unconsciously, his hand comes up to toy with the pendant, a habit he’s developed since starting to wear the necklace.

“Your beliefs have changed,” Megan says, eyes following the movements of his fingers. “So have mine. You’ll find that nobody here is the same person they were a year and a half ago.” She reaches up to cover David’s hand with her own. “I know that this,” she says, tapping the silver _S_ with a fingernail, “doesn’t make a lot of sense right now. But it will soon. I promise.”

David’s eyes flick from Megan’s face down to her hand on his. He tugs at the pendant again. “This is weird,” he says hoarsely.

Then, before Megan can pull away, he flips his hand so their fingers can intertwine. His gaze finds hers again. “But I trust you.”

Megan’s heart skips a beat. He’s looking at her like he did the first time they almost kissed, which Megan had stopped by putting her gun against his head (with the safety on, of course).

She has no intention of stopping him this time, though.

Her mobile buzzes.

David jumps like a startled rabbit, letting go of her hand, and the moment is lost. She curses under her breath. Half expecting to find that Knighthawk’s been spying on them, _again_ , she looks at her mobile.

“Abraham’s calling me,” she says, a note of relief in her voice. “Probably to check on our progress.”

“Right,” David says, taking a few deep breaths. “Okay.”

Megan taps her mobile, linking it back to her earpiece. “What’s up, Abraham?”

“We’ve made it to the new hideout,” Abraham says over the line. “It’s not as comfortable as the aboveground base, but David should find it familiar.”

“That’s good,” Megan says. She checks their map again. “We’re about to go down into the catacombs, and I think from there it’ll take us about ten minutes or so to reach the hideout.”

“That’s fast,” David comments with some surprise.

“Prof has not arrived yet,” Abraham says, not having heard David’s comment. “The two of you may get here before him.”

“David, the catacombs are a lot safer than they used to be, and we have shortcuts,” Megan explains.

David nods. “That’s fair.”

Megan hears a _thump_ over the line, and a cry of pain that sounds suspiciously like Cody.

“How much have you told him?” Abraham asks.

“Not a lot,” Megan admits. “Mostly some things about Steelheart and some of the changes in Newcago.” She pauses. “Prof’s working on a way to explain... more recent events.”

David eyes her, a mix of curiosity and apprehension on his face. She can’t quite look at him directly.

“I see,” Abraham says. There’s a pause; Megan thinks she hears Mizzy laughing in the background. “You may wish to mention some of the, ah… changes to our team roster before you arrive, though.”

Megan’s stomach twists painfully. “Sparks,” she murmurs. “Yeah. Thanks, Abraham.”

“Of course,” he says.

There’s a long pause. Megan gets the feeling Abraham is trying to come up with something comforting to say.

She doesn’t give him the chance. “See you at the hideout,” she says, not waiting for his response before she disconnects.

David’s still looking at her, something sad and unnameable in his expression.

Megan’s mouth goes dry. She looks again at the map still pulled up on her mobile screen, even though she knows exactly where they’re going next.

“It’s this way,” she murmurs, gesturing to a doorway to their right.

 

In silence, they descend a long flight of stairs that leads them down, deep below the understreets - into the steel catacombs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there it is! we get to hear from the other team members, David gets some of his questions answers, and Megan and David do some bonding
> 
> next chapter we're back to David's POV, and he'll see the other Reckoners in person at the hideout, as well as meet someone new :p


	3. introduce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David meets Mizzy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A point of clarification: Some scenes from different POVs are happening simultaneously, and are not necessarily perfectly in chronological order. For example, the beginning of the scene that's from Mizzy's POV is happening at the same time as the end of the scene before it.  
> Hopefully nothing's too confusing timeline-wise in this chapter, but I'll try to point these scenes out when they happen and explain when they fall in relation to other scenes.

The catacombs, at least, are much as David remembers.

There’s very little light down here, save for Megan’s mobile, which she’s using as a flashlight, and the glowing embers of the occasional abandoned trash can fire.

They pass one fire that’s still burning, a small group of people clustered around it. One of them, wearing a jacket with the hood up and a rifle slung over his back, looks up and meets David’s eye - and, to David’s surprise, gives him a respectful nod.

David’s never been quite sure what to make of the people who live down here. Growing up in the Factory, he’d been led to believe that the catacombs attracted monsters of a special kind. Not Epics, necessarily - those monsters had their place, in the overstreets - but the worst of humanity, gathering in the outskirts of Steelheart’s reign.

Megan glances over at David, then follows his gaze to see the reason for his lingering. More of the people are watching them, now.

Steelheart had pretty much left the catacombers alone. Once, David had wondered at this. He thought it was a mistake, an oversight. He’d thought the catacombs an anomaly of the city, a place untouchable by Steelheart or his Enforcement.

Now, though, he understands that Steelheart left the catacombs alone intentionally, so he’d know where his outcasts were gathering. He’d let them, the people most likely to be discontent with his rule, have a little bit of freedom down here, in hopes of keeping them from becoming rebels.

The man with the hood salutes them lazily. Megan salutes him back.

Now, David thinks that the people who take refuge here might be a lot like him. Not monsters, not evil - outcasts, yes, but more than that, scared people doing what it takes to survive.

Megan takes his arm, pulling him onward, but David pauses.

Maybe, in another lifetime, he would have been one of them.

He turns back to the group of catacombers, who are still watching them, and salutes them all.

 

The pair of them continue on, Megan leading the way, checking the map now and again. David still has so many questions he wants to ask her, but he feels like she’s closing off to him. She’s hardly looked at him since they left the understreets, and she hasn’t said a word either.

Maybe he’s been reading the signs wrong this whole time. The way she looked at him, the way she smiled, the way she’d leaned in when he said he trusted her… Maybe he’s been imagining things.

He doesn’t know what it looks like for a girl to be in love with him, anyway. It’s probably just wishful thinking.

After what feels like hours in the silence, but in reality is probably only five minutes or so, Megan takes them down a path different from the rest. Typical tunnels in the steel catacombs - at least, as typical as anything gets in the steel catacombs - have mostly flat walls, usually intersecting at something resembling a right angle. But this tunnel has smooth, rounded walls. It looks less like a tunnel built by the Diggers, back in Steelheart’s early reign, and more like something newer, crafted by a special piece of Reckoner technology known as the tensors.

David runs a hand along the curved wall. He doesn’t recognize this tunnel; it must be new. Tia’s work, he guesses, or maybe Abraham’s.

“I should tell you about Mizzy,” Megan says softly.

David looks up. Megan’s stopped in the middle of the tunnel, one hand on the wall, the light from her mobile casting a halo around her silhouette. Her shoulders are hunched, her head lowered.

“Mizzy?” The unfamiliar word - a name, maybe? - sounds strange in his voice.

“Mizzy,” Megan repeats, and it sounds right, like she’s said it a thousand times. She turns, backing up against the wall so there’s room for the two of them to stand side by side in the tunnel. “You wouldn’t - you wouldn’t have met her yet.”

David leans against the wall across from her. He crosses his arms over his chest, trying to look cool, but immediately has to uncross them and brace himself when he starts sliding down the smooth metal wall.

Trying to pretend his composure isn’t slipping as well, David asks, “Who is she, then?”

“You’ll meet her soon enough,” Megan says, her lips quirking into something like a smile. “She joined the Reckoners several months after you did, I think?” Megan shrugs. “She’s younger than you by a year or so.”

David nods slowly, absorbing this information. A new team member. He opens his mouth, intending to ask what role this Mizzy person plays on the team, but instead what he says is, “Is she nice?”

Megan actually _blushes_. “Yeah,” she says, brushing some hair back out of her face. “She’s nice. She’s really nice.” Megan glances away, though her smile seems to have gotten bigger. “You’ll lo- you’ll like her a lot.”

She turns and keeps walking through the tunnel, apparently considering this conversation done. David, more than a little confused, trails after her.

\---

Meanwhile, somewhere halfway across the city, a young Epic paces a steel room, and tries to piece their life together.

The room is totally unfamiliar. They don’t know how they got here, only that they woke up here, feeling like they’d been run over by a helicopter. Or a motorcycle. Something like that.

The pain had subsided fairly quickly, leaving them with nothing but… well, nothing. No idea where they are. No idea how they got here.

Sparks, they don’t even know their own _name_.

So, they keep pacing around this room. They try to put together a story that makes sense. Their first thought is that they’ve been captured, for some reason, and had their memories wiped somehow. They’re quick to dismiss this idea, though. Their reasoning? First off, they hadn’t been restrained in any way, and there isn’t anyone guarding them. There’s nothing preventing them from walking out the door, aside from their own hesitation. So no, they’re not being held captive.

More than that, though, this room doesn’t look like a prison. It looks like a home, actually - a real mattress on top of a steel bed frame, a suitcase on the floor beside the bed… Maybe more of a temporary home, then, but a home nonetheless. There’s a table on the opposite side of the room, fused to which is what used to be a TV but now is nothing more than a TV-shaped block of metal. There’s a working mini-fridge, though, plugged into a new outlet next to the useless old one.

Something itches at the back of their mind, about how everything in this room is made of steel. There’s a window on one side of the room, steel curtains frozen forever mid-flutter. The window itself has been cut open, re-paned with new glass. Cautiously, they walk over and peer outside.

 _Newcago,_ they realize. The sun is casting its final rays over the city - _the city of steel_ \- as it vanishes beneath the horizon. Much of the steel has been painted over, but the exposed surfaces are reflective - blindingly so in full daylight, but at dusk, mirrored light colors the city pink and violet.

 _Newcago_ , they mouth silently to themself. Something is trying to come back to them - a memory - but it keeps passing them by, as if they’re a surfer failing to catch the wave that’s offering to carry them to shore.

They turn away from the window, and their eyes fall on something else. A desk, between the TV stand and the wall, with a steel chair permanently pushed in underneath it. The desk itself is unremarkable - a lamp that’s had its steel bulb replaced with a working one, a steel pen fused to the tabletop, a Bible that will never be opened again - save for the mess of very real papers scattered across it, spilling onto the floor.

They take a step toward the desk, reaching out, hand grasping the first paper they touch.

Then the memories hit them in a flood.

\---

“Okay, it should be right about here,” Megan says, stopping them in front of a nondescript, completely smooth steel wall.

David glances around, looking for a disguised entrance. The entrance to their old hideout had been concealed by a curtain of loose wires - not an unusual sight in the steel catacombs, where the Diggers had often started implementing electricity or plumbing, but never finished.

“I don’t see anything,” he says.

Megan raises an eyebrow at the wall, then glances at her mobile. She taps it a few times. Her other eyebrow rises to join the first, and she smirks.

She points at a spot on the wall at eye level. “Put your hand right there.”

David glances at her warily. “Uh,” he says eloquently.

Megan smiles at him and doesn’t say anything else.

He turns back to the wall, and engages in a brief staring contest with his metallic reflection. It’s a stalemate. Finally, he takes a tentative step forward, and presses his hand flat against the wall.

The steel seems to - to _hum_ under his fingertips. It feels kind of like the vibrations from using the tensors, but… with a different melody. One that’s foreign, and yet familiar at the same time.

David has only a few moments to be confused by this before Megan lays her hand over his and slides them both over about a foot to the right.

The hum stops.

David’s hand goes straight through the wall.

“Whoa,” David says, jerking back and bumping into Megan, who’s just about doubled over laughing.

“Sparks,” Megan gasps. “I’m sorry-” She cracks up again, wiping tears out of her eyes.

David pulls away from her, frowning.

“Sorry,” she says again, having finally regained her composure, though her eyes are twinkling. “This hideout is hidden by Epic-derived technology. There’s no wall here - it’s an illusion,” she explains, taking his hand to guide him through the false wall.

Walking through what appears to be a wall of solid metal is somewhat disorienting, though David supposes that, as Epic-based technology goes, light manipulation is pretty tame. They come out into a narrow, tensor-made corridor. Attached to the ceiling is the device that produces the illusion, a round metal thing with a glass prism suspended from it, attached by some wires to a black box. There’s no light source that David can see, though the prism seems to exude a faint glow of its own somehow.

On this side of the illusion, the nonexistent wall is still visible, but translucent. Like one-way mirror glass or something. Only without the mirror, and also without the glass. Whatever.

He turns back to face Megan, who, he’s startled to find, has been intently watching him examine the illusion projector.

“What?” he asks, discomforted by her staring. Maybe there’s something on his face?

“Nerd,” she says, smiling.

David wants to argue that he is _not_ a nerd, thank you very much, but… there’s so much affection in her voice and fondness in her eyes that he thinks he’ll let it go, this one time.

They walk down the short corridor, at the end of which hangs a simple cloth curtain, the kind that often replaces doors in Newcago. Megan knocks on the wall twice to announce their presence, then lifts the curtain and steps through.

David takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and follows.

\---

“Relax, lass,” Cody says, after Mizzy drops her third box.

“Sorry,” Mizzy says with a wince, grateful that at least she didn’t squash anyone’s toes this time. She concentrates on levitating the box back up in front of her, then moves to set it down on a low shelf cut into the steel, next to the other boxes.

Abraham looks up from his workbench, where he’s fixing the rifle David had dropped in the fight against Fast-Forward. “That one should have David’s notes,” he says, nodding towards Mizzy’s box, “as well as a few other things.”

Mizzy opens the box and peers into it.

A pair of empty eye sockets peers back.

“Ewwww,” Mizzy says, lifting Steelheart’s skull out of the box without touching it. “Why does he even still have this thing?”

“Y’all might want to be careful,” Cody says, leaning against a wall. “Don’t spook the lad with yer disregard for gravity, there.”

Mizzy glares at him. “Fine,” she says, “ _you_ deal with this thing, then.” She sends the steel skull sailing across the room and into Cody’s hands.

Cody catches it, grimaces at it, and deposits it into the nearest empty box.

“Cody is right, though,” Abraham says softly. “It would be best for you to limit the use of your powers, at least in David’s presence, until we have explained a few things to him.”

Mizzy sighs. “Yeah, I know,” she says, reaching into the box and pulling out the first couple of notebooks. She sits down on the floor and leans against the shelf; this particular hideout has built-in storage, but not much in the way of furniture. “Spaaaaarks. Somebody’s gonna have to tell him that _he’s_ an Epic. That’ll be fun.” She starts flipping through David’s notes, looking for the information on Rewind.

_Knock, knock._

Mizzy looks up to see the curtain covering the entrance to the hideout being swept aside, and in walks Megan.

Her eyes find Mizzy’s immediately, and despite everything, Mizzy can’t help but smile at her girlfriend.

Megan’s answering smile is small, hesitant, but it’s enough to make Mizzy’s heart skip a beat.

Cody coughs.

Megan breaks eye contact with Mizzy, turning to look back the way she came, stepping to the side.

There, standing in the doorway, is David, wide-eyed and frozen.

Mizzy freezes.

For a moment, the room is absolutely silent. No one dares to breathe; Mizzy can’t even hear her own heartbeat, but she can feel it, pounding in her chest and her ears and her fingertips.

David slowly scans the room. He looks at Abraham, sitting at his workbench… Cody, leaning against the wall… Megan, watching him with worry… then his eyes land on Mizzy.

She wants to say something. Calamity, she wants to say _something_. But what is there to say? He doesn’t remember her.

“Well,” Cody says, breaking the silence, “welcome to Hole Twenty-Four, lad.” He takes a pair of sunglasses out of a pocket and puts them on, then pulls them down on his nose so he can peer at David over them. “Y’all didn’t forget about me, now, did y’all?”

David laughs, and the tension melts away like ice cream in the sun. “No, I don’t think so,” he says. “You’re pretty memorable.”

“Unfortunately so,” Abraham says.

Mizzy looks down at her lap.

“Not that I think you’re _not_ memorable,” David says, all in a rush, startling Mizzy into looking back up at him. “I mean, I don’t know - I - I’m sure you’re, like, awesome and not forgettable at all, except for, I mean - sorry, can I start over?”

He turns around and walks out of the hideout. Mizzy blinks at the fluttering curtain.

“What,” she says.

David walks back in, glances around, then looks at Mizzy and smiles. He walks right up and sits down in front of her. “Hi,” he says, holding out a hand for her to shake. “I’m David. You must be Mizzy.”

Mizzy blinks at him, at his award-winning smile, at his proffered hand, and bursts into giggles.

“You’re such a dork,” she says.

“So I’ve been told,” he says, still smiling, not lowering his hand.

She regains some composure, and mimics his mock-formal greeting, though she can’t keep a straight face while shaking his hand. Taking it a step further, she adopts a voice only marginally sillier than her normal one and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, good sir.” Then she drops his hand and the silly voice and adds, “Again.”

He lets out a little awkward chuckle, running the hand Mizzy just shook through his hair. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I’m, like, a robotic monkey experiencing technical difficulties right now, or something.”

And there he is, the David she knows and loves. Some of the fear in the pit of her stomach uncoils; now that he’s here in front of her, whole and safe and smiling, it’s a little bit easier to believe that this time, everything will be okay.

\---

Somewhere on the shore of what used to be Lake Michigan, time is moving at a crawl.

The Epic known as Fast-Forward races along, ducking in and out of buildings. To a normal observer, she’d be moving so fast as to be nothing but an orangish blur; from her point of view, she’s moving at normal speed, but the world around her is inching along at less than a frame per second.

Finally, she finds what she’s looking for: a block of abandoned houses. Newcago’s population has grown significantly since she was last here, but there’s still plenty of empty space.

Especially here, on this not-quite-sacred ground, so close to Steelheart’s old palace.

She slips into a house, makes sure it and its neighbors are well and truly abandoned, then, finally, lets time resume its normal pace.

She breathes a sigh, feeling as if the weight on her chest is lighter. Time’s speeding up, or maybe she’s slowing down. The distant noise of the city resumes. The sun disappears behind the horizon, faster than she thinks it should.

She slings her backpack off her shoulders and settles on a steel couch. She got so close today, she muses, pulling out the stolen mobile. She almost had them.

But then those sparking Reckoners had to get in the way.

It’s alright, though. She has a plan. She’s figured out how she can use their… recent _misfortune_ to her advantage.

 _Next time, Rewind,_ she thinks.

_Next time._

\---

On the other side of the city, in a steel hotel room, a young Epic wakes up.

A flood of stolen memories runs through their mind - through _his_ mind.

_My name is David Charleston._

_And I’m a Reckoner._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time you leave a comment, Mizzy gets a cookie ;)


	4. examine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prof calls an old friend. Rewind investigates their own past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Procrastinating releasing a chapter for so long that I forget what the chapter's about? It's more likely than you think.
> 
> Prof's conversation with Terra happens right after he hangs up on Megan, so it's simultaneous with some of the events in Chapters 2 and 3.

David’s curiosity is getting more intense by the minute.

He thinks he understands why they’re not telling him everything about the past year and a half right away. It’s a lot, he knows, and he’s already overwhelmed by what they _have_ told him. But he gets the feeling that he’s missing out on something big. And sparks, he’s more curious than whatever it was that killed the cat.

Megan and Mizzy are sitting in a corner of the room, looking for something in David’s notes - which he’s not allowed to help with, apparently. He’s trying not to be upset about that.

Cody’s regaling David and Abraham with an outlandish story - something about cupcakes and the king of Denmark? - which neither of them are really paying attention to. Abraham’s busy fixing a _really_ nice rifle that David’s never seen before. He’s not sure who it belongs to; Abraham’s more of a machine gun man, and Megan prefers handguns. He thinks it might be Cody’s, but something seems off about that idea. Then again, it could be Mizzy’s. He has no idea what kind of gun she prefers.

He notes that he also has no idea where his own rifle is. Its absence is almost as unsettling as the weight of the silvery chain around his neck.

For David’s part, he’s busy trying to absorb everything he can about his new situation. It feels a bit like when he first joined the Reckoners - the feeling of being thrust into a brand new life, only this time, he had no warning.

There’s something about this new team that he can’t figure out. There’s something in the way Megan slumps against Mizzy’s shoulder, or how Mizzy tenses up when Megan whispers in her ear. There’s something about the new scar on Abraham’s arm, and about Cody trailing off in the middle of a sentence, only to pick back up on a completely new storyline. There’s something about Prof’s continued absence, and the way no one has even mentioned Tia.

David wants to know what happened to his team.

Wait. When did he start thinking of the team as _his_?

Abraham finishes his repairs, then checks the rifle over one last time, making sure every piece is where it’s supposed to be and that everything functions as it should. Apparently satisfied, he picks up the gun, stands, and turns to David with an easy smile - and then his face falls.

David realizes he knows who the gun belongs to.

“Sparks,” he says.

The rifle, a Gottschalk, is _really_ nice. It’s not his usual style - it’s very sleek and military and completely black, no wood on it at all - but it’s a good gun.

But it’s not his rifle.

Well, technically it is - it’s a rifle and it apparently belongs to him - but it’s not _his rifle_.

It’s not the rifle that he spent years saving up for. It’s not the rifle that Megan used to checkmate Fortuity.

He doesn’t know what happened to his old rifle, but he feels like he’s lost a friend.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to put her on probation again,” Megan calls from across the room.

David stops staring at the rifle to look at her. “Probation?”

Mizzy snorts.

Megan untangles herself from Mizzy and walks over to join them. She takes the gun from Abraham, who watches with faint amusement.

Seeing Megan holding the Gottschalk does something strange to David’s heart. It takes him a moment to identify the emotion as… jealousy. What?

Megan smirks at him. “This rifle’s saved both of our lives on multiple occasions,” she tells him. She checks to make sure it’s unloaded, then passes the gun to David.

He takes it hesitantly, and examines it. “Wow,” he murmurs, testing its weight. “Electron-compressed magazines, recoil reduction gravatonics, remote fire…” Muscle memory kicks in; his hands remember everything about this gun, even though he doesn’t. “Sparks, night vision _and_ infrared scope?”

“Mm-hmm,” Megan hums, looking very pleased, maybe even proud. “She’s not bad, for a rifle.”

“Nerds,” Mizzy calls.

“ _You’re_ a nerd,” Megan retaliates, smiling.

“All y’all are nerds,” Cody says, effectively killing the moment.

\---

Jonathan Phaedrus has been through a lot since Calamity rose, thirteen and a half years ago.

He’s stood against Steelheart and come out on top. He’s battled his own inner demons, and lost. He’s confronted Calamity himself. He’s caused the deaths of countless enemies, and even more friends.

But he’s not sure any of that could have prepared him for this.

Prof picks up his mobile and sends a message to Terra.

Moments later, the screen lights up with a video call request. He’s not sure whether to be relieved or wary.

Nonetheless, he accepts the call, then uses his mobile to project it onto the larger screen in front of him. This is one of the secure operations bases they’ve set up for running missions in the city; he’s got screens showing footage from various cameras across Newcago, a line to the Reckoners and another to Enforcement, even an imager set up in a smaller room off to the side.

Usually, David or Abraham would be sitting in here, coordinating everything while the other four did the legwork.

This is the first mission Prof’s been a part of in a long time.

He screwed it up. But he’s determined to make things right.

“Professor,” Terra says, the static on the screen resolving into her face. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Her smile is a warning, all teeth, like a wildcat baring its fangs. _Don’t come any closer, or I’ll bite._

Prof is just glad she’s alive.

He chooses his words carefully. “I need your help,” he says. “We have a… situation.”

“A _situation_ ,” she repeats, raising an eyebrow. “You mean, you have an Epic that you need information about, but you don’t want to ask Steelslayer, and since Tia’s dead and Knighthawk wants nothing to do with you, you thought you could come to me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, looking - for a moment - very much like Tia, if Tia had dark skin and shoulder-length curly hair. She leans forward. “Is that right.”

Prof winces. She’s very nearly hit the nail on the head, not that he intends to tell her that.

But there’s one point she got wrong.

“Believe me, I would ask David if I could,” he says. He leans forward to match her, though his expression is somber, whereas hers bears a challenge. “Are you familiar with an Epic called Rewind?”

Terra’s always preferred video calls over communicating via text or audio-only, but Prof swears he’d be able to hear her eyes rolling even if he couldn’t see it. She pulls a keyboard closer to her and types something on it, focusing on something off to the left of the camera, probably her notes pulled up on another screen. “As familiar as anyone can be,” she says while still typing, “considering they’re a memory Epic.”

Prof nods. “They’re in Newcago,” he says, “or at least they were, within the past hour. My- The team had a run-in with them.”

Terra, to his relief, ignores his verbal slip-up. “You’re telling me,” she says flatly, “that the Reckoners tried to hit an Epic that they knew nothing about, and that something went wrong?”

“It wasn’t a hit,” Prof grumbles. “And Rewind wasn’t the target. It was supposed to be a surveillance mission, to find out what Fast-Forward is doing in the city.”

Terra frowns. “Fast-Forward is back in Newcago?” She starts typing again. “Firefight can’t be happy about that.”

“Her name is Megan,” Prof corrects quietly.

Terra’s frown deepens, but she gives no other indication that she heard him.

She gestures at one of her many screens, rearranging her files so she can look at Prof more directly while she reads. “Jessica Holt,” she says. “Gained powers in the second wave, shortly after the Annexation of Newcago… time dilation powers…” She uses a simple motion with one finger to scroll. “How does Rewind fit into this?”

Prof doesn’t get so much as a word out before she whips her head up, cutting him off with a glare.

“Actually,” she says, “how do _you_ fit into this? You haven’t been a Reckoner in months.”

Her words sting like salt in an open wound - a feeling he knows all too well - but he meets her gaze without wavering. “David asked me to run operations.”

For an instant, all the heat drops out of her glare, replaced by raw grief.

Prof knows she’s thinking about Tia.

He is, too. Everything reminds him of her.

“As for Rewind,” he says, “we’re not really sure. David likes to keep track of every Epic in Newcago, so we knew they were in the city, but we didn’t expect them to be hostile.” He runs a hand down his face. “I didn’t even see them coming.”

“I’m not surprised,” Terra says.

“Thanks,” Prof says dryly.

She doesn’t laugh, but the huff she lets out is clearly amused. “Actually, as much as I’d like to, I can’t blame this one on you. You probably weren’t aware that Rewind can’t be seen on camera.”

“Sparks,” Prof says.

Terra’s eyes light up, just like David when he gets excited. “No one’s ever been able to take a picture of them,” she says. “Whenever someone tries, the camera captures the scenery behind them as if they’re not there at all. This happens even when they’re not aware they’re being photographed, so it must be an unconscious manifestation of their powers.” She rocks back and forth a little while she talks, bringing her hands up under her chin. “It’s like they’re completely invisible to the camera. No one’s ever tested it before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this applies to audio recordings as well.”

Prof sighs. It’s not good news, but it explains a lot about what went wrong on that mission. “So we’ll need to find another way to track them, then,” he says.

Terra meets his eyes, and her excitement evaporates as she remembers who exactly she’s talking to. “The team was spying on Fast-Forward, and Rewind caught them off-guard,” she says. “What else happened?”

“Fast-Forward must have suspected she was being tailed,” Prof says. “I couldn’t see this, but from what David said, it seemed like Rewind was also following her.” He shakes his head. “I’m not sure if Rewind ambushed her, or if Fast-Forward discovered them and attacked in retaliation.”

Terra’s brow creases, and she scrolls through her notes again. “Rewind is extremely stealthy,” she says. “I haven’t heard of any acts of hostility from them in a while, but I doubt she would have discovered them if they wanted to remain hidden.” She looks back up at him. “If you can send me the recordings from the mission, I can analyze them and give you a more solid theory.”

Prof nods. “I can do that.” The half-smile that graces Terra’s face makes him feel a little warmer inside. “At that point, David decided to intervene, and tried to stop the fight before any civilians got hurt.”

“Let me guess,” Terra deadpans, “that made Fast-Forward even angrier.”

“Yes,” Prof says. He hooks his mobile up to Tia’s laptop and starts downloading the recordings to send to Terra. “I’m sending you the footage of the fight. Maybe you can make some sense of it. Most of the time, she was moving too fast for me to see.”

“That’s her time dilation,” Terra says. “From her perspective, she’s slowing down the rest of the world. To us, it looks like she’s moving at super-speed.” She turns to one of her other screens. “I’m getting your recordings now. If I slow the footage down, I should be able to see what she’s doing.” She swivels back to look at Prof. “But that’s not all you needed me for.”

“At some point during the fight, Rewind made a run for it,” Prof says. “David apparently chased them into an abandoned building while the others were fighting Fast-Forward. David lost his mobile in the fight, so I don’t have footage of the encounter, but…”

He trails off as Terra’s eyes widen.

He thinks she’s figured out where this is going.

“When Megan noticed he was missing, she went back to look for him. When she found him, Rewind was long gone, and David was missing a year and a half of his memory.”

“Sparks,” Terra murmurs. “A year and a half.” She shakes her head. There’s something distant about the look in her eyes. She lets out a little disbelieving laugh. “Calamity be damned. That’s a hell of a predicament you’re in.” She leans on her desk, arms crossed, propped up on her elbows. “Do you have a plan, or do you need someone to come up with one for you?”

“I’m working on it,” Prof replies without missing a beat. “But I’m going to need some information.”

\---

_My name is David Charleston._

_And I’m a Reckoner._

“David” stares at the piece of paper clutched in his hand.

He’s not entirely sure how he ended up on the floor of a hotel room, sitting between a steel desk and a wall, clutching a piece of paper, but he plans to figure it out.

He thinks he should get up. The room is dark, save for the partially functioning lamp that’s fused to the desk, and what little twilight streams through the window, late as it is. And it’s getting later, every moment he sits here.

But _Calamity_ , his head hurts.

Maybe he hit his head at some point. Maybe that’s why he’s so out of it. Impervious skin protects him from bullets, but that doesn’t mean it would save him from a concussion, right?

Well. He’s got to start his investigation somewhere, and this piece of paper he’s holding is as good a place as any. If that doesn’t get him anywhere, then he’ll look through the rest of the papers on the floor and on the desk, and then the suitcase he can see next to the bed -

\- only, he can’t see the suitcase from where he’s sitting. It’s on the other side of the bed. But he knows it’s there, just like he knows there’s two mini-fridges on the other side of the TV stand, which is on the other side of the desk, even though he can’t see them. Even when he closes his eyes, he can picture the exact layout of the hotel room.

He forces himself to get up, using the desk to steady himself. He looks around and finds that everything he predicted would be in the room is in the exact place he thought it would be.

How long has he been here?

Right. The piece of paper. He walks over to the bed and clambers up to sit on the mattress, which is further off the ground than mattresses should be, given that it’s technically on top of another mattress. He unfolds the paper, trying his best to smooth out the wrinkles.

It’s… a letter.

At least, it looks like it’s supposed to be a letter. It’s kind of hard to read. There are a lot of smudges, and a lot of words crossed out or scribbled over completely. There’s a few spots that look like tear stains.

The handwriting looks familiar, though he can’t quite place it.

 _Dear_ ~~_Mirage_~~ _Lavender_

 ~~ _I’m_~~ ~~ _You didn’t_~~ ~~_You were so scared_~~

 _I don’t know why I’m writing this. No one’s ever going to read it. You’re never going to read this, because_ ~~_you_ ~~

The rest of that line is scribbled out. Part of David thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be reading this, but the rest of him is trying to figure out where he’s heard the name “Mirage” before.

 ~~_you’re dead_~~ _I killed you. Oh Calamity, I killed you._

_You got in my head. You taunted me, and you toyed with me, and I killed you. You were the first one I killed._

_You never got angry with me, not even once. Not even when I grabbed your arm and stole your memories. Not when I taunted you right back, when I threw your weakness in your face_ ~~_and_ ~~

_You were just so scared._

_I thought I was right. I thought I had the right. It didn’t matter that you were just like me. It didn’t matter that you were as scared as I was._

He remembers now. Mirage had been an early Epic from a city not too far from Newcago. She was a mental illusionist, altering how people perceived reality, as opposed to manipulating light like Refractionary or pulling shadows from other dimensions like Megan. She’d died about three years before David joined the Reckoners, killed by another Epic.

David feels sick.

He’s seen firsthand the aftermath of an Epic’s corruption. The pain, the guilt they bear - every innocent life taken, every injustice committed, every instance of wrongdoing - it’s overpowering. He stood by Megan through the worst of it; he’s not sure Prof will ever quite recover.

 _I won’t, either_ , he finds himself thinking.

He frowns, but brushes it off as just one of those thoughts that doesn't make sense.

There’s more to the letter, but he doesn’t really want to read the rest of it. He leaves it on the bed and moves to clean up the mess of papers by the desk.

He finds more letters.

Every piece of paper is a letter. Each one is in similar condition to the first - messy, crumpled, cried on. He tries to give them some kind of organization; he starts sorting them into the order they were written in, only to realize there’s no dates on any of them, so he guesses instead. Somehow, it comes easily to him, almost like he already knew the order.

He stares at the stack of letters in his hands - wonders when he started biting his nails - and leafs through them.

They’re all names he recognizes.

Phlegethon (Xander), a fire Epic with powers similar to Obliteration’s. Died five years ago - less than a month after Mirage.

Quicksand (Brandon), an Epic from the ruins of Nebraska. Killed four years ago.

Stasis (Katrina), disappeared three and a half years ago.

Avalanche (Adam), three years ago.

Audio (Drew), two years.

Dozens of names. All Epics. All dead, with death dates ranging from five years ago to just over six months ago. All slain by another Epic.

The same Epic, it seems like.

Unease sinks from his chest down into the pit of his stomach, settling there like an anchor drifting into the abysmal depths of the ocean.

_Something’s not right._


End file.
